


All the Quiet Ones

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Ties that Bind [9]
Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Ancestors, Art, Books, Family, Gen, History, Knight & Squire, Politics, Portrait, Truth, mentoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:24:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Imrah shows Roald the Legann library and some family history.





	All the Quiet Ones

All the Quiet Ones

On Roald’s second day in Legann, Imrah introduced him to the castle’s library. Imrah took his responsibility of continuing the education of the the boys who squired for him seriously—often ordering them to read in the library for hours about any topic they might find intriguing and then to report back to him with what they had learned—and felt he could discover much about their mindset toward knowledge by their reaction to entering a room filled from wall to wall and ceiling to floor with books. In the past, his squires had looked either resigned to the prospect of more dull academic work or overwhelmed by the scope of the library, but Roald just appeared curious as he peered at the titles of tomes on nearby shelves. 

“An impressive collection, my lord.” Roald looked as if only the fear that it would be impolite to help himself to a book without invitation from Imrah was preventing him from pulling a military history of the ancient Thanic empire off the shelf for perusal. 

“You’re a reader, I see.” Imrah slid the book that had captivated Roald off the shelf and handed it to his squire. “Any book that strikes your fancy you may borrow without asking my permission. Consider any book in here yours to read as you will.” 

“Thank you, sir.” Roald smiled slightly as he clutched the volume Imrah had given him to his chest in the protective posture of many quiet bookworms Imrah had met. 

“What other books besides military histories do you read, Roald?” Imrah asked as he guided Roald through the stacks to a certain item he wanted to show the prince. 

“Histories in general. Political theories. Books on magical theory and practice. Law books.” Roald trailed off as if he thought he might have been guilty of babbling, finishing somewhat abruptly, “Anything that isn’t sappy love poetry or boring philosophy in short, my lord.” 

“You’ll find many books to pique your interest here then.” Imrah stopped before a portrait on the wall above a flaming fireplace. The man in the portrait stared back at them with commanding pale blue eyes that seemed to have the color faded from them by the burdens of authority under hair as black as a raven’s wing. “Speaking of having your interest piqued, I think you might find this portrait to be of interest to you, squire.” 

“It’s Roald the Quiet, isn’t it, sir?” Roald’s forehead knotted as he studied the painting of his ancestor, whose taciturn, stern nature could be felt across time through the brushstrokes. When Imrah nodded, Roald went on, “We’ve a portrait of him in the royal gallery too, of course, but his eyes are bluer there.” 

“Yes, they are,” agreed Imrah, who had seen the portrait of Roald the Quiet in the royal gallery on numerous occasions. 

“I suppose it makes sense, my lord.” Roald was rubbing his chin in a way very reminiscent of his father. “The painter who made the royal portrait gave him Conte blue eyes, and the painter who made this portrait gave him Legann blue eyes. Each painter was more concerned with flattering the families who commissioned the work than with depicting the truth through art, but it raises the question of what was the truth. How blue were his eyes?” 

“Perhaps each painting gives a glimpse of the truth,” suggested Imrah. “Maybe his eyes were a different shade of blue depending on the light or what he was wearing.” 

“Possibly. My sister Vania’s eyes do that, though they shift from blue to green, not light to dark blue.” Roald considered Imrah’s words and then nodded. “I like that idea, sir. The truth is often somewhere in between.” 

Silence fell between them as they admired the painting and measured the man who had once been king. Then Roald murmured, “When I look at the portraits of my ancestors, I can’t help but wonder what they were like as people, my lord. Roald the Quiet left shelves of letters in the royal archives, but most of them are about business or legal matters. Almost none of them are personal. You get insight into what he thought as a king—and he seems to have been wise in many matters—but you never get a peak into his heart as a man.” 

“Much of his more private correspondence ended up here in Legann.” Imrah indicated a shelf next to the fireplace filled with letters that had been bound into books. “He wrote to his younger brother who became the Lord of Legann and his natural parents while they were still alive quite often during his time as Crown Prince and throughout his reign. On parchment, he was anything but quiet. In his letters, he revealed many of his secret thoughts and laid his heart bare to his first family.” 

“May I read his letters, sir?” Roald’s fingers brushed across the gilded spine of a volume of their mutual ancestor’s writings. 

“Of course you may. I just told you that you may borrow anything in here without asking permission, and this is as much your family’s history as it is mine.” Imrah squeezed Roald’s shoulder before adding as he recalled how many of his doubts, fears, and angers Roald the Quiet had poured into his letters to Legann first as Crown Prince and then as king over a country to which he shrugged to bring peace and prosperity, “Just remember that Roald the Quiet was only human, lad, and he shared many of his weaknesses—the sides of him that only his family and not the world was allowed to see—in these letters. Don’t judge him too harshly for human doubts, fears, and flashes of temper.” 

“I won’t, my lord,” Roald promised, gazing up at Imrah with an expression that suggested he would find it rather reassuring to read the internal battles of his ancestor. Imrah could imagine that the inward turmoil of Roald the Quiet during his time as Crown Prince might be particularly relevant to his squire. “I’m only human, too. That’s why I want to learn what he was like as a human.”


End file.
